The Hong Kong Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority held an MPF Symposium on sustainable development and issued a circular letter guiding Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) trustees to strengthen transparency around Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) funds in MPF schemes, to support scheme members’ investment decision-making. The circular requires trustees to set out in MPF scheme brochures the ESG foci of ESG funds, the relevant investment strategies, and the mechanisms used to monitor and measure attainment of those ESG foci. Trustees should also regularly assess the extent to which the established ESG foci are being achieved and disclose this assessment in their schemes’ annual governance reports. Symposium remarks also pointed to the MPFA’s sustainable-investing principles for the industry, the eMPF Platform as a sustainability-related operational initiative, and the integration of sustainable instruments into MPF portfolios including a mechanism that prioritises allocation of institutional green bonds issued by the Government to MPF schemes.

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